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Home > Old RESPITE 2 Documentation

Table of Contents

• TLD and Domain Blacklists/Whitelists
• How can I use RESPITE without having to check online all the time?
• How can I tell what is and isn't scanned?
• I receive mail in foreign languages (with foreign character sets). How can I prevent these from being tagged?

TLD and Domain Blacklists/Whitelists

First, what is a TLD? TLD stands for Top Level Domain ; these are the suffixes to domain names, like '.com', '.org', and '.net' to name a few.

In the Domains Blacklist/Whitelist you can block TLDs. If you receive a mail with an unknown TLD , you can click on the "TLD Reference" link on the bottom of the page. This will bring up a listing of all the geographic top level domains and their corresponding owners.

If, for example, you are getting a lot of spam from Japan (TLD = .jp), and there is no reason for you to get any legitimate mail from Japan, you can use the Domains Blacklist/Whitelist page to block mail from any japan domain.

To do this, simply follow the Domains Blacklist/Whitelist guide, enteringing the TLD into the "Enter a specific domain:" box (without the preceding period - i.e. 'jp' instead of '.jp').

Note that any subdomain takes precedence over its domain. For example, if you had a domain entry 'videogameimports.jp', the settings for that domain would override the settings for 'jp' for that domain only ; likewise rules for 'mail.videogamesimport.jp' would take precedence over rules for 'videogamesimport.jp' or 'jp' for anything from 'mail.videogamesimport.jp'.

You can find the 2 letter country TLDS at http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm

How can I use RESPITE without having to check online all the time?

If you are an existing user who is sick of checking online every day for spam, or a new user who doesn't like that thought, there are ways of configuring RESPITE so that you don't have to maintain your trap. We call these modes Maintainance-free modes . Under these configurations, no mail will accumulate in your trap, however you will still get the benefits of spam scanning.

• Tag subject only - This can either be done in the Opt-In/Out options where you can restore a Mark Spam and Release setup, or you can manually set this option in your Spam Options by setting the Only tag spam -- do not hold any messages option to 'yes'. This method uses your Spam Threshold to add a string to the subject of the email instead of holding it in the database. In this setup, no spam will be held, and any messages it believes to be spam will instead be marked clearly in your inbox. The downside to this is that you will have this spam marking in any subject on any message it believes is spam, regardless of reality, and most clients will not let you edit the subject line, forcing you to be stuck with a spam-marked message even if its a false positive.
• Set the Spam threshold and Auto-reject score the same - This method also prevents messages from being held - rather, if you set these scores the same, it changes the behavior so that anything below the threshold is allowed through, and anything over the threshold is rejected. Be very careful with this option. If you choose this method, it is highly recommended that you set the threshold value high - at least 10 - to minimize the rejection of legitimate mail. Rejected mail is bounced back to the sender during the SMTP dialog, and without notification to the recipient, so you would have no way of knowing the mail was trying to be sent to you without checking the 'Marked as spam' trap.
• Scan on header only - This is for advanced users who know how to configure their client to scan for headers. RESPITE inserts an 'X-RPI-SA-Score' header, followed by a number of asterisks (*) - the number corresponds to the score. For example, if a message scored a 4.4, there would be 4 asterisks in the value of the header. This can be used to filter spam on the client, and also not mark up the subject line in case of error. This can be enabled either at Opt-In/Out options or your Spam Options by setting your Spam Threshold to 100 (which is unobtainable by average spam without custom rules).
• Any combination - These methods can be combined as well, depending on your level of comfort with the system and your values - i.e., you can scan on header only, but set the spam threshold and auto-reject score at 20 instead of 100, thus rejecting the almost-certain spam while still filtering on the client.

How can I tell what is and isn't scanned?

First, go to Scanning: Spam and Viruses and read the Spam (respite.rpi.edu) section. This will lay out the rules which govern what messages are spam scanned and what messages aren't. (It should be noted that all messages are virus and heuristics scanned, as noted further down on that page). If you are curious as to whether a message was spam scanned or not, you can search for the 'X-RPI-SA-Score' header. If the header exists, the message was scanned, with the exception of the 'message too big' value - that means the message exceeded the file size limitation and was not spam scanned. If you need assistance finding the headers of the email, contact the Help Desk Consultants .

I receive mail in foreign languages (with foreign character sets). How can i prevent these from being tagged or held as possible spam?

To offset scores levied by spamassassin for foreign charsets, add two rules to the Custom Rules under Blacklists/Whitelists:

if Header Contains charset= Then add: -3.2

if Header Regexp Matches =\?(.+?)\?.\?.*?\?= Then add: -5.7

Last modified: February 3, 2007